The First House

Consider the houses in your birth chart as individual doorways into different rooms of your astrological/psychological castle. 

Your Rising sign, sometimes referred to as your Ascendant, appears on the cusp of the first house. (Cusp is Latin for spear or point, and is the line that separates the houses in the zodiacal wheel; it also separates two consecutive signs). 

Your Rising sign is the doorway to the first of twelve rooms in your castle. The Rising sign holds importance for several reasons. It represents the outward persona, the identity or way you present yourself to the world. It ifluences first impressions and how others perceive you before they get to know your deeper, more complex personalty.

The first house is the most personal and most powerful House in your chart, for it symbolizes you – your mannerisms, your style, your disposition, and temperament.  The First House reveals both the way you present yourself to others and the way the outside world sees you.  This is the house of the individual that shows who you are as a person.  It often indicates your physical characteristics, especially your head and facial features.  

Sometimes called the House of self-interest, it denotes what you want in life and how you go about achieving it.  In astrology, the First House is thought of as a giant lens through which the rest of your chart is seen and interpreted.